Concise Summary: Help us pitch this solution! Provide an explanation within 3-4 short sentences.

NGO BOROUME facilitates the food saving process of the largest supermarket chain in Greece to nearby welfare organizations & charities as well as municipal social services who help people with food insecurity.

WHAT IF - Inspiration: Write one sentence that describes a way that your project dares to ask, "WHAT IF?"

What if all the supermarket stores would donate food they could not sell anymore to charity?

About Project

Problem: What problem is this project trying to address?

This project addresses the oxymoron of having supermarkets that daily throw tons of edible food away and people who are suffering from food insecurity at the same time, often even in the same neigborhood.
This food waste has a substantial social, environmental (production of methan gas in landfills) and economic impact (wasted resources).

Solution: What is the proposed solution? Please be specific!

NGO BOROUME connects selected supermarket stores which join the program after the company's decision with nearby welfare agencies, charities and municipal social services that help people with food insecurity.
The company provides the manual which stores have to follow in order to ensure food quality and the correct procedure for donating the food.
The recipient agency has the obligation to collect the saved food on specific hours that suit the store, thus minimizing logistic costs for the company.
NGO BOROUME facilitates the creation of these links by providing information regarding suitable recipient organizations and is responsible for any changes regarding these links.

Impact: How does it Work

Example: Walk us through a specific example(s) of how this solution makes a difference; include its primary activities.

A typical example is the Christodoulio orphanage in the western suburbs of Athens, which has been connected to the local store of AB Vasilopoulos since November 2013.
The orphanage is collecting food on a daily basis from the supermarket which is enough to cover one meal of all 34 children housed in the orphanage.
The donated food is mainly "ready-to-eat" meals which otherwise would have landed in the garbage.
This help reduces the overall food cost of the Christodoulio orphanage, thus giving them the possibility to re-allocate their budget to other important costs, such as heating, repairing infrastructure and even paying for a field trip for the children.

Impact: What is the impact of the work to date? Also describe the projected future impact for the coming years.

The impact of the work varies a lot due to the differences in size of the supermarket stores but also due to the fact that the goods that are suited for donation vary a lot (there can be no prediction of damaged packages for example).
From the 13 stores that are already connected with recipient organizations the donated goods vary from 200 to 1500 meals per month / organization.
The future impact looks very promising since only this particular supermarket chain has right now over 260 stores all over Greece and just 13 are on board now. In the coming weeks this number will be increased to 30 supermarket stores.
Apart from the above, the fact that one of the leading supermarket chains of the country has released a press release in DEC2013 about this action means that many other chains could follow.

Spread Strategies: Moving forward, what are the main strategies for scaling impact?

The desired impact of the idea is to connect as many supermarket stores as possible with nearby recipient organizations.
The project already has spread in 2 other cities, apart from Athens. Just AB Vasilopoulos has over 260 stores all over Greece which means that the geographic spread will include the whole country.
Having surpassed many legal obstacles the company have succeded in finding the way to save as much food as possible and offer it to people in need. This can and will be used as an important tool in our effort to advocate a substantial change in the existing legal framework.

Sustainability

Financial Sustainability Plan: What is this solution’s plan to ensure financial sustainability?

This project requires little budget because the main investment in human resources has been made already.
The connection, follow-up with recipient organizations and any changes in the existing partnerships are being handled by BOROUME, which is in the position to cope with this workload with its existing human resources.
The cost of training new personnel at every new store that is included is relatively small.

Marketplace: Who else is addressing the problem outlined here? How does the proposed project differ from these approaches?

To our knowledge there is no similar project in Greece running at this point.

Team

Founding Story

The "Aha!" moment of the initial founder Ms. Xenia Papastavrou was when she realized, during a restaurant visit with her family, how much food would be thrown in the garbage from their left-overs.
From this moment in May 2011, BOROUME, which means "we can", has offered over 1 million meals to people in need, the vast majority of which saved food.
In just a short period of time BOROUME has become the reference point about food waste in Greece and continues to raise awareness about this issue every day.

Team

BOROUME has 3 founding members who have the overall strategic leadership regarding this project and also another 2 full-time and 1 part-time employee who play an ad hoc role regarding the connection of new stores with recipient agencies and carrying out the follow-up report with every recipient.
The realization of this project only takes up a small percentage of daily available working hours of our team.

The information you provide here will be used to fill in any parts of your profile that have been left blank, such as interests, organization information, and website. No contact information will be made public. Please uncheck here if you do not want this to happen..

Magnificent article, a debt of gratitude is in order for assembling this! This is clearly one extraordinary post. A debt of gratitude is in order for the important data and experiences you have so given here. music download apps

I think this is a better than average article. You make this data intriguing and locks in. You give perusers a ton to consider and I welcome that sort of composing. chaturbate token hackxbox live account